Middlesex County Prosecutor Andrew C. Carey and Chief Richard Ivone of the Piscataway Police Department announced today that a former assistant youth minister has been arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl on a number of occasions while he served at a church in the township.
Ronald L. Wilcox, 60, of Fruitland, Md., was arrested in Maryland on April 11, 2015 on charges of aggravated sexual assault, sexual assault, aggravated sexual contact, sexual contact and endangering the welfare of the child.
Wilcox, who lived in Piscataway at the time of the sexual assaults, was charged during an investigation by Detective Kenneth L. Saunders Jr.of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office and Detective Robert Rose of the Piscataway Police Department.
Wilcox is being held in Maryland, but is expected to be returned to New Jersey.
Bail in New Jersey has not yet been set.
During the investigation it was determined that the defendant sexually assaulted the teenager at a church office and at her home while he served as a Deacon-in-training and assisted the youth ministry at the Macedonia Freewill Baptist Church in Piscataway.
The investigation further determined that the victim was sexually assaulted on a number of occasions between July 1996 and sometime in 1998.
The investigation began after the victim, now an adult, told a relative, who contacted authorities.
Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Saunders of the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office at (732) 745-3600, or Detective Rose of the Piscataway Police Department at (732) 562-1100.